Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Brown Rice -- Tomato Rice

There was an interesting article in NatGeo(May '09) about the carbon foot print of wine. It seems it is more carbon efficient for a New Yorker to raise a glass of French Wine than a California one.

The wine journey from Napa Valley, Calif by less efficient and more carbon emitting trucks has a larger carbon foot print than the wine container shipped from France or even Sydney. So even though "distance" does matter, efficiencies in transportation might overcome that.

Though the article is not there on the net, the research findings which provided the numbers for NatGeo are here

All this makes me think it might not be all that environmentally prudent to buy local food always and shun food based on "food miles" alone

We used to be quiet afraid of Brown Rice when we first heard about it. We even made fun of it and like ignorant bumpkins made statement that rice which was available for free in Indian ration stores were packaged and sold in super market aisles here at a high price.

Truth be told we had tried neither, the ration rice or the brown rice. But like true browns we chased the white until we fell for the goodness of brown.

With great trepidation we tried our first brown rice and liked nothing much about it. The only way we could eat this stuff is as a Khichuri or a Fried Rice, proclaimed the other half. So that is how it was, Brown Rice Khichuri or Fried Rice occasionally, on days we felt our body should ingest some goodness. Eating it felt morally so good that we could chomp on a burger later without any guilt.

Slowly we ventured into making regular brown rice, flavoring the cooking liquid with cardamon, cloves and what not. We got hooked onto the nutty taste, it tasted best with a gravy thing or with dal. We even graduated to having fish curry with Brown Rice. Yes, we have come a long way on the Brown Rice Trail.

We still continue having white rice though and haven't switched completely but weekends are always brown and so are most of the one pot rice meals.

Some weekends back D made a Tomato Rice. He used Brown Rice instead of the white rice that is normally used. He followed Sailaja's Recipe down to making the spice powder. It tasted beautiful.

Next day I made some to pack for lunch. I skipped the spice powder as I wanted a non-South Indian Tomato Rice. Instead I added some fresh home made Garam masala powder. That tasted great too.

And we had one more Brown Rice recipe that worked great for us. Are you afraid to try Indian dishes with Brown Rice, give it a try, you just might love it.

30 comments:

I love to brown rice in Adai, gives a great color and nutty taste too. My carrot rice has garam masala, easy to make than grinding spices unless you have it ready. Tomato rice looks great Sandeepa, healthier too with brown rice.

Once I let my kids and hubby know that I am there safely, I will try hard NOT to contact them again until the day before I come back home. Let them miss me!! Hahaha!

Even I wasn't sure how I would like brown rice at home, I always loved it with thai food at the restaurants. And one of the first things I made was a coconut-veggie rice. I enjoy it in fried rice, and mixed rices like you do. not really attracted to having it with sambar and rasam as yet.

Thanks Asha :) You enjoy but do tell us all that you did once you are back ;-)

Priya I LOVE Brown rice with sambar and rasam :) And also with all our dals. Now I like Dals with B. Rice more than with white rice :DJust don't think of white rice while you are having B.Rice, gradually you will get used to it.

Ramya

What sauce ? Shall check your blog

Cham

But I liked your Masoor Dal Biryani with Brown Rice. Of course it doesn't taste same but does taste good.

"like true browns we chased the white" - you had me cracking up! :) I have not gotten used to exclusive brown rice yet. I mix white and brown and that makes it more palatable. Also I found that cooking it in the pressure cooker makes the texture softer than with a rice cooker. I'm trying...but not completely there yet.Tomato rice looks great.

Hi Sandeepa,I heard a lot abt the benifits of brown rice but haven't tried it as yet. Many of them are opting for it these days...I'll take the leap sometime soon :) Tomato rice loks very mild and tasty, great for any time eat!TC

I don't make brown rice that oftenas my daughtr don'tlike them.Love the flouwers in your garden and atleast the tulasi plant survived the winter, a real treasure to have them.Love the tomato rice, looks ymmy.

I guess brown rice is a bit of an acquired taste.We get a brown rice in Kerala which is basically boiled rice which is quite tasty.By the way with heat of summer here, there's less of green so I love the way your garden looks. Of course, rains in a month's time should make it look like that here too. :D

Sandeepa,just came back to read about carbon footprint etc..it's something personally dont go well with me at least i am totally unaware of it..we spend so much time in analysis/calculations and things like that but when it comes to implementation ..we go two step backwards i mean upto a certain level ,when things are busy in life who is bothering where the vegetable/wine is coming from ......but perhaps what we can do is stop using the plastic bags to get our vegetables from grocery stores.. yeah that we can do and it will make a whole lot of difference...and also planting lots of greens in our small world like you did ..it feels so wonderful to see your basil plant and many kudos to you for that ...hugs and smilesJaya

The green is really cool for the eyes. I especially envy that pink bloom in u're garden. I love anything with tomato. Tomato rice is my all time favorite and I hav tried Bee's version sometime back. Haven't tasted brown rice yet! How're little and Big sis S? Its a while we heard about them :)

What a coincidence - I have been using brown basmati rice a lot the past two weeks- I have to admit that it was because we ran out of white rice and so had to start using the brown rice that had been sleeping in the pantry..I've been making a khichdi with brown rice , moong dal and spinach (Will post the recipe soon) and it tastes fabulous-I was actually very surprised..I've also added brown rice to dosa batter in the past but haven't learnt to love it yet..

Oh!!! I love it... I make brown rice Tomato rice at home and it comes out good. Yes, the secret to enjoying it is to NOT compare it with white rice but yeah, its like being bald and being give strict instruction by the doc to not think of mango when applying the medicine on the bald head!!

I even tried Tomato Quinoa but tomato-brown rice was better. I sometimes make a pulao cooked with coconut milk as well. I have finally embraced brown rice with both hands.

Brown rice is daily feature here at our households, when we buy it at local market here in Bengal, people look at us with surprise usually buying poor man's rice. We love the taste and are not hooked on it.

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Predominantly a Bong, who loves being a Mom and loves to cook among other things for the li'l one and the big ones.She loves to write too and you will find her food spiced up with stories. Mainly a collection of Bengali Recipes with other kinds thrown in, in good measure. A Snapshot of Bengali Cuisine